Snow Piles in Buffalo, New York Still 10 Feet Tall – Yes, in Late July

Reminders of last year's crazy snow storm in Buffalo, New York are still standing tall. The week before Thanksgiving last November, Buffalo and the surrounding area saw more than seven feet of lake effect snow that crippled the region for a time. The snow removal process created huge piles of snow in various dumping areas around the city, and two of those piles are still standing in the area.

WGRZ-TV is reporting these two piles, roughly 10 feet tall, are still slowly melting away in a vacant lot on the east side of Buffalo. These piles are being protected by dirt and garbage that has formed a "blanket" of insulation as the outer layers of the snow pile melted away.

As former Minnesota/current Buffalo meteorologist Patrick Hammer explains in the video below, the protective cover of dirt and the compacted and dense nature of the snow itself makes it more like a glacier, melting slowly from the warm ground on the bottom, rather than from the top. Experts anticipate the piles could easily stand well into August, if not longer, depending on weather conditions.